


The Tea Party at the End of the World

by Medie



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Chromatic Character, Crossover, Gen, Multiverse Challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-01
Updated: 2010-07-01
Packaged: 2017-10-10 08:23:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/97644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medie/pseuds/Medie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two extremely long lived beings, some tea, some conversation, and possibly a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Same old same old where Listeners and Time Lords are concerned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tea Party at the End of the World

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for [](http://multiverse5000.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**multiverse5000**](http://multiverse5000.dreamwidth.org/) prompt - _Guinan and any post-Time War Doctor (Nine, Ten or Eleven). Time traveling long-lived refugees from civilizations destroyed by cyborgs meet and ... do something. _ My thanks to [](http://shopfront.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**shopfront**](http://shopfront.dreamwidth.org/) for the beta

She materialized to a morning crisp and cool, the sun a shaded grey against the dull, smoky horizon. Listening for a moment, she heard the faintest echoes of a familiar engine and set off in that direction. It didn't take long to find him.

Well, it didn't take long to find the TARDIS. The old girl did tend to stand out and Guinan liked that in a ship. She stopped for a moment to smile at the little blue box in the distance, standing stark against the grey that surrounded them, and thought, in its way, that the TARDIS smiled in return.

"You could have just had them beam you down closer," the Doctor noted as she neared. "It would have saved you the walk."

"I like walking, it's peaceful," she said. The irony of her statement wasn't lost on either of them, but unspoken agreement kept her and, she knew, him from commenting on the fact. As fond as she was of listening, there were some things even Listeners didn't need to hear. "Besides, my legs needed the stretch. Not all of us spend our days running madly for our lives."

The Doctor hmphed at that and finished laying out the table with a flourish as he sat. It was a fine spread and Guinan had no qualms about that. There was the prequisite of tea, a large steaming pot of it, but the treats that surrounded it were especially impressive. Sandwiches, cookies, and, naturally, various creams, sugars, and jellies. Guinan even spied a bowl of familiar candy in the midst of it all and hid a smile, her hand sneaking out to steal one. As expected, he smacked at her handand missed in truly spectacular fashion. She came away with her jelly baby prize and the merest suggestion of a smirk. Less had always been more and, in this case, so much so.

"You know," she said, "there are easier ways to do this." Removing her hat, she gave her hair a cursory pat and took seat at the table. The Doctor, naturally, immediately jumped up to help her with it.

Because, of course, it really annoyed her.

Some things never did quite change.

"Of course there are," he agreed, bright as ever. Nothing quite changed about that either. "There are any number of very lovely shops on any number of planets in any number of centuries quite capable of brewing the perfect cup of tea. Why, there's a certain chain of them on twenty-first century Earth - now don't make that face, Guinan, it's a very lovely century and you know it."

"What I know is what happened next," she said, patient as ever. She didn't have much use for change either. "Lovely isn't a description one usually applies to a world war." _ Particularly not that war. _ She brushed hands over the soft cream of the tablecloth, it was a lush fabric, threads sliding like butter beneath her palms, and somewhere deep inside she shuddered with revulsion. Those days had left her with the quiet certainty she'd never be clean, never know warmth, never see anything but the stars obscured by the flare of detonation.

Lovely indeed.

"Ah, yes, well, fantastic start that century," the Doctor agreed with chagrin. It was closer to sheepish than she remembered of more recent regenerations. "Went a bit off the skids, true. Ended much better though, what with the Vulcans and all. Lovely bunch those Vulcans. Always did fancy the ears."

"But not more than the regenerations," Guinan said. She ran a look over him and smiled. "I think I should call you Merlin. You keep getting younger."

Sitting down, he shrugged off his coat, gave his suspenders a snap and beamed at her. "Good skin."

She nudged her cup toward him. "Good answer."

He tucked his chin, looking wounded, but took the hint anyway. Picking up the rather ornate pot - she'd never been a fan of ornate or ostentatious, but the man was a Time Lord and some things just had to be overlooked where they were concerned - he poured the tea. "Think this time round might be a bit of a better time of it."

Guinan nodded and, again, didn't elaborate. She was sure Deanna would have very appropriate and clinical terms to describe the Doctor's experience. She'd even heard a few from Deanna's predecessors after her arrival on Earth. Her quiet refusal to relate her experiences in the Nexus or the loss of her home had seemed so very textbook to those counselors. She'd thought differently, of course. How could one relate the Nexus? Of feeling part of yourself being ripped away, an unwilling hostage, by a phenomenon that not even the El-Aurians with all their awareness could properly explain.

Or the Borg.

How did one explain the Borg?

"Pesky lot," the Doctor agreed, nodding. "But, of course, you'd know that."

"I would," Guinan said. She picked up a tiny sandwich for further contemplation. "As you'd know the Daleks." She abandoned the sandwich and surveyed their surroundings. "Which one of them was responsible for this?" This, of course, being the hollowed out, broken down remnants of buildings. Something that might have been pavement slowly cracking into dust, pulled apart by the stubborn plants working their way up to a sky made grey by clouds and smoke. She looked at the horizon, the skyline filled with the shattered husk of a dead city and let herself see the hundreds of echoes scattered all across the planet. City after city a monument to the dead.

"Neither, I expect," the Doctor said. He popped a jelly baby into his mouth. "Neither of them seem all that interested in this sector." His eyes gleamed with just a little mischief. "Our human friends make such terrible hosts for the cyber-inclined."

"They do at that." Guinan didn't smile, but couldn't deny a sense of pride. She was long past any stage where it would embarrass her. "I'd suggest staying in this century a while, but I'm not sure the Federation is quite ready for you."

"Hmm," the Doctor grinned, chomping down on another jelly baby. "You're just afraid Q and I will get into it again."

With far more restraint than either of them deserved – Guinan didn't doubt Q was listening, he was still pouting over not being invited – she shrugged. "You started a civil war on three planets. Considering one of them was technically uninhabited at the time says something, don't you think?"

"That it wasn't quite so uninhabited as you might suggest?"

Guinan narrowed her eyes. It was the kind of look that, she'd learned, more astute Gallifreyans associated with El-Aurians who were fixing to knock you on your arse. As to whether or not the Doctor numbered among the astute of his people, well, now, that wasn't something she cared to judge.

"Bother," he said. "It wasn't as if it was my fault."

"Since when do you say _bother_?" Guinan asked. She wasn't about to fall for that old argument. With him and Q, blame was a universal concept.

"I don't," he said. "Still trying out this body and, surprisingly, haven't given the tongue much of a workout yet."

Guinan let her eyebrows rise.

He blushed. "I did say not _much_."

"Hmm."

"I did!"

Guinan gave him that. The Doctor's idea of excess did have a small problem of being massively oversized compared to, well, everyone else's. "And?"

"Thought I might take a stab at it. Like the way it rolls off the tongue. Bother, bother, oh bother, quit bothering me this very instant and – no, forget it. Bother's too much of a bother." The Doctor waved a hand. "Moving on, how is your captain?"

"Better behaved than yours," Guinan replied.

"Hear now, Jack is not _mine_," he said, cheeks turning scarlet. "Not by any stretch of the imagination."

Which, Guinan thought, thoroughly underestimated the imagination of Jack Harkness. She sipped her tea. Sometimes, the better part of valor was leaving the Doctor his illusions. He did tend to have them shattered in spectacular order at any rate. No need for her to make it worse.

"He was, however, fine the last that I heard. Quite a resilient one, our Jack."

"With your propensity toward galactic peril, he'd need to be," Guinan said. "Topple any empires lately?"

"No, but the regeneration's young. You never know. Did find a rather unusual crack in the fabric of space and time. Don't suppose you've heard about that, have you?" the Doctor tipped his head, resting his cheek on his hand, and watched her. "Out roaming the universe as you are."

"Not a thing," Guinan replied. "Should I be worried?" Which was El-Aurian for 'what fresh hell has Gallifrey dragged us into this time and how much will we bleed trying to fix it?'

"Oh, no, no," he waved his hands expansively. Which, for the Doctor, meant wildly for everyone else. So much so that Guinan moved the teapot and the jam. Thinking better of it, she moved the jelly babies too. "Nothing at all that you should concern yourself with."

Guinan narrowed her eyes. "_Doctor_."

His smile became sheepish. "As I said, nothing at all. Just a minor crack in the fabric of space-time, hardly anything to be worried about."

"Oh yes," she agreed, putting down her mug. "Hardly."

"Now you're just making fun of me," he complained. "I really do have the matter well in hand."

Words that, from a Time Lord, could scare a century or two off an El-Aurian's life, at least.

He nodded. "Yes, well in hand." With a impish smile, he nodded at her tea. "Drink up. Don't want it getting cold."

"No, we can't have that," Guinan agreed. "Not with the fabric of space-time about to rip itself asunder."

The Doctor snorted. "Now this is why I didn't want to tell you, Guinan. You never did appreciate a very good cup of tea."

She made a face. "This will end badly."

He nodded, sage. "Just don't tell Q."

Guinan said nothing. She just drank her tea.


End file.
